


Kate

by AlterEgon



Category: A Knight's Tale (2001)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Pre-Canon, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 20:24:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlterEgon/pseuds/AlterEgon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look at Kate's past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vae/gifts).



> Dear Vae,   
> Here's what your prompt for Kate inspired me to write. I hope you'll enjoy reading it.

Metal had always had a special allure for her. Even as a child, Kate could spend hours upon hours sitting in her father's forge, watching the tall man hammer away on the iron, shaping it, patiently and powerfully. She was her parents' only child. From tales, she knew that her mother had been with child again after her, but the hopes for a son to one day take over the father's forge were shattered when sickness struck.

Her mother survived, though much weakened, but the unborn child did not, and the blacksmith's wife never got pregnant again after that.

His hopes for a son shattered, Kate's father did what he never could have conceived of if he had had a son to train in his craft and let his girl-child stay in the forge with him as he worked.

After a while, he started giving her simple tasks – the kind he would have to the son who existed only in his wishes. For minutes, then for hours at a time, he forgot that Kate was, in fact, a girl. She was a good student, too. Where another child might have fled the hot forge and the sweaty labor there, she sought it out, hurrying through her chores around the house so she could run over and watch. She carried and fetched for her father, learned to work the bellows and eventually, after years, the blacksmith put a hammer in her hand and let her try to shape her first bit of red-hot metal while he held and turned it.

It didn't amount to much – the result was a misshapen glob of iron that wasn't good for anything – but Kate kept it and treasured it as something special anyway.

He showed her how to make nails. For weeks and months, making nails was nearly all she did. She didn't mind. Making nails was a smith apprentice's job, they said. She was old enough by now to be an apprentice, and maybe her parents had, in fact, forgotten that it was a daughter they were raising, and that apprenticing a daughter in the smithy was not considered appropriate by most.

She learned to make arrowheads, to shape horse shoes and beat the dents from ploughshares. She learned to fix broken armor and weaponry. She couldn't wait for the day when she'd be allowed to try her hand at her first piece of new armor.

But she got older, and her body had certainly not forgotten that she was a girl. With the first signs that she was turning into a young woman, her time in her father's forge was over. She was too old to play at being a boy now, her parents said. The forge was declared off limits to her. No man would want a wife who had a blacksmith's muscles and spent most of her day getting dirty. A blacksmith's wife may be called upon to help out in the forge now and then, but it was not a fit way for a young woman to spend the greater part of her days.

She tried to reason with them. She begged, she yelled and begged some more. She tried to make a deal. Another year and then…

She threatened to run away in the dark of the night.

Nothing swayed their decision that she, who had been her father's unofficial apprentice until then, was now to be prepared for marriage and motherhood.

Eventually, she succumbed to their wishes, but her resentment didn't fade until she met Tom.

Tom, a young blacksmith, ready to set out travelling the villages with his horse and his wagon and a mobile forge. Tom, who did not laugh at her when she commented on his work or the metal he worked, but heard her out and replied like an equal.

Tom, whom her father had chosen to be her husband.

It wasn't hard to fall in love with him. Tom was a large man, like most smiths, but all muscle and no fat. His face was broad and plain, but good-natured and almost handsome. A shock of reddish-brown hair stuck out stubbornly in all directions just a few minutes into his work, even if he had spent time before tidying it up so he would look presentable at breakfast. And he did.

He treated her like a lady – or how she imagined a lady would be treated – without making her feel silly. From the first day that they spent walking in the village together to get to know each other, Kate knew that she belonged with him. When he offered his arm that day, she took it, and they both knew that it was far more than the courteous gesture between two young people who had been betrothed by their parents. It was a promise between the two of them.

They lingered for only a few days after their marriage before they set out to travel the island as Tom plied his trade where it was desired. Kate would have liked to meet Tom's family but, according to him, it would have been a bad idea to return there just now. His older brother was already afraid that he might challenge him for his right to take over their father's forge as the eldest. As always, Tom wanted to avoid strife.

He was good at his work. Maybe, Kate had to admit to herself, he was even better at it than her father.

For several years, they travelled, staying nowhere more than a fortnight before moving on, sleeping in their cart, under their cart or, when the weather was right, out under the open sky, with the sky and the stars for a blanket.

All was well, until a different idea started to take hold of her. They were still young, but they were not going to get any younger. Kate wanted children of her own now. When she looked over the meadow in which they had parked the cart, her inner eye supplied a little girl chasing butterflies through the grass and a boy, slightly older, helping his father set up the tools.

Not long after that, there came the day on which she was able to announce the news to her husband. He was going to be a father.

They talked the better part of that night away. Eventually, they agreed on one thing – they were going to try to find a place to settle down. Life on the road was good enough for them, but they had seen many other travelers lose young and even older children because they were too far from people when they needed help.

In the years to come, Kate often cursed that decision.

Had they kept on going the way they were, they might still be happy together, watching their children grow up and their grandchildren play by the stream as they got ready for one of their short stays in some place or another.

  
  
Illustration by Rebekah


	2. Chapter 2

Tom came running back to the cart, his hair in even more disarray than usual. Kate smiled fondly to herself as she pulled on the reins and stopped the horses so her husband could climb safely on board. She already imagined her hands in his thick hair as she cut it for him. It was high time for it, too.

"I found it," Tom panted as he almost flew up the steps and flopped on the box next to her, trying to catch his breath.

Tom always went ahead when they neared a village, quickly checking out the situation. A few times, it had become clear quickly that the local smith did not welcome the competition. Ever since one had managed to rally some of his friends to keep them from setting up their things by throwing stones, they had scouted out their stops before actually making an appearance with the cart.

"Found what?" she asked, slightly confused.

"The perfect cottage for us!" Tom's face lit up in a wide grin. Excitedly, he kept pulling at a lock of his hair – a habit that did not do anything to help the chaos on his head. He pointed with his free hand. "Take that way. I'll show you!"

"Tom," Kate cautioned with an amused undertone, "slow down. A cottage for what?" She did turn the horses onto that branch of the road, though.

Her husband looked at her as if she was being deliberately slow. "For us!" He almost stood, his excitement too much to take sitting down, but reconsidered when a wheel hit a badly repaired spot in the road. "They don't have a smith here. They don't just have too much work for the one they have, they don't have one at all! And there's an unused cottage just by the edge of the village. It's not huge but it would be big enough for us and the little one."

In contrast to Kate, who always thought of her unborn child as Tom Junior, Tom refused to settle on a gender.

"We can't pay for a cottage," she pointed out.

If it was standing empty and unclaimed, it must be one of those belonging to the local lord, rented out to someone able to pay. It wouldn't be a matter of taking possession of an abandoned abode and making their home there.

"We can work something out," he said. "I'm sure we can. They need us. Turn down that way at the fork."

Kate humored her husband, steering the horses down the right branch of the road. It was only a matter of minutes before they reached the edge of the settlement.

It was large for a village, but too small for a town still. The cottage Tom led her to was located at the very edge, near where the land rose into a hill topped by a square, blocky castle.

"What do you say?" Tom asked, jumping down the moment Kate stopped the horses. He stood there, in front of the small wooden building, arms spread out to the sides.

She looked it over from where she was sitting. The house would be small for a family, but plenty large enough for the two of them and a toddler. They _could_ consider adding rooms or a loft at a later time. There was another, smaller building adjacent to it, with the setup and chimney suggesting a forge.

"Won't you come down and at least look at it?" Tom asked when she still showed no signs of budging from where she was sitting.

It was hard to deny him when he asked so openly. Kate climbed down, slowly approaching the cottage to push open the door a crack.

Dusty, stale air greeted her, along with a mostly empty room. As far as she could see, most of the inside was one large room, with a much smaller section partitioned off towards the back. She moved over to the forge. Wherever the former owner had gone, he'd left most of what was supposed to be in the forge behind – in contrast to whatever things he had owned for his household.

"Smith was old and died 'bout a year ago," Tom said without being asked. "Even before that, he hadn't been able to cope with the work anymore. They need us."

"How do you know?" Kate took a step inside the forge, running a hand over the dusty, sooty anvil.

"Talked to the neighbors, down that way." He pointed towards the village. "Kate, let us at least talk to the lord about this? Maybe he's a sensible man."

"When have lords ever been sensible?" she asked. Usually, it was much safer for people like them not to draw the attention of the likes of those. She no longer sounded as opposed to the idea as she had before, however, and she could hear it in her own voice.

Turning around to her husband, she saw movement on the road leading down from the hill. She nodded towards it.

"Looks like you're getting your chance sooner than you think."

She stepped out of the forge. If those men riding towards them were coming from the local lord, one thing she didn't want them to think was that they were trying to take possession of the property without permission.

The riders were clearly headed for them. They pulled up next to their cart, looking down at the couple.

"I hear you are a smith," the man riding at the lead said without introduction.

Tom nodded. "So I am."

"A smith is needed here."

He nodded again. "So I have heard."

The mounted man smiled, but it was not a smile that Kate found comforting. "And you would fill that spot?"

Tom bowed his head slightly for a moment. "I would. However – I'm but a travelling craftsman, and we're not sure that we can afford to rent this place."

The smile widened and, if that was possible at all, grew even more unpleasant, as far as Kate was concerned. "We may be able to work something out," he said.

Hearing almost the same words that Tom had used earlier did nothing to soothe her either. She took a step closer to Tom.

He looked up at the lord – for she was quite certain that that was who he was, maybe come to see the novelty of a simple, moneyless craftsman trying to rent a cottage from him without soiling his castle with their presence – with an open, disarming smile. "I would like to hear what you propose."

"How about an example of your skill?" The answer came so fast that he must already have had it ready at hand.

"I can do that," Tom said. "What kind of work do you desire?"

"A lot of work has been left undone this last year. Harvest is coming. Tools need fixing. A smith working for me also needs to be skilled in the crafting of armor. I propose this: If at the end of a fortnight, the work that needs doing for the castle is done and I have a new breastplate that suits my needs, using whatever you brought along with you and what is left in the forge here, you will have this cottage and forge for the rest of your natural life."

Tom considered only a second. "And if it cannot be done?"

"Then you stay and work for me anyway. As a slave."

Afraid that Tom might do something as stupid as agree, Kate stepped forward and spoke up. "Excuse me, mylord," he said quickly. "But might I discuss this with my husband for a moment?"

The man on the horse shrugged indifferently. "Don't take too long."

Pulling Tom behind her, Kate retreated to the corner of the forge. She spoke rapidly, in barely more than a whisper. "You can't accept that challenge." She searched his face, trying to guess at what he was thinking. Usually, she could read him easily, but right now was not 'usually'. "Tom, you can't. You don't want your children to grow up a lord's slaves."

They might not have much to their names right now, but they were free. Slaves were the lowest of the serfs, working only for the lord's gain, not allowed to keep any of what they earned or to work the land they lived on. Instead, they had to make do with whatever alms the lord threw their way. In standing, they were below the bordars and the villeins, and it was about as far down from where they were standing now as it could be.

"Kate, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Tom pointed out. "I can do it."

She shook her head, violently. "You have no idea how much work he is intending for this 'challenge'," she insisted. "This sounds more like a ploy to secure free services for him."

"A cottage, Kate," Tom said, ignoring her point entirely. "Our own forge. This is too good an opportunity to let it go."

He turned to go, but she held him back with one hand on his arm.

"He has a castle. He can drop so much work on you that there's no chance in the world that you can finish in two weeks."

His lips twitched into a smile that Kate found not at all reassuring. "I'll take care of that," he promised before he determinedly turned around and walked back to the road.

Once there, he looked up at the still-mounted lord, meeting his gaze levelly. "I'd like to agree to what you propose," he told him. "However – I'll do no such thing before I've seen the items you need me to fix. I have to know how many and what condition they're in before I can estimate how long the work will take me."

For a fraction of a moment, the lord looked surprised, then outraged, then his face settled into a polite mask. "Very well," he conceded. "That is fair. Present yourself at the castle gates in one hour and you will be shown."

  
  
Illustration by Rebekah


	3. Chapter 3

Kate listened to the clang of rhythmic hammer on metal from the forge. For the first time since she could remember, the sound gave her no comfort.

Tom had returned from the castle with a smile that told her that he had consented to the idiotic challenge even before he opened his mouth to tell her to start moving their belongings into the cottage. She hadn't even bothered to point out that there would be a lot of cleaning to be done before they could think about moving anything in there. Of course, if something went wrong they wouldn't have to worry about moving anything at all because they'd not have any property to move anymore. She had wanted to scream at her husband, but at the same time his seemingly unlimited confidence was starting to be reassuring.

Not long after he had come back, two carts came rumbling down the hill, delivering the work to be done. She looked through it with some relief. It was a lot, but Tom had done more work in the same timeframe before. He was right. It was doable.

She went to get water to start the cleaning, while Tom set up shop in the forge and went to work right away.

The next morning, she woke alone, Tom's side of the bed already cold. He must have gotten up before sunrise to start the fire and get to work. That was good, but with the new day her apprehension over the challenge had returned with a vengeance.

Going back to work on the cottage to distract herself, she managed to pass half the morning before she could no longer stand being inside. It was time to bring Tom a treat anyway. He had to be hungry by now. The sounds of a smith at work had never once stopped since she had woken up.

Tom was working at his mobile forge, using his own tools and anvil. He shook a sweaty strand of hair from his forehead and smiled when he saw Kate appear in the doorway.

"Are you mad at me because of the bet?" he asked her silently when she came over and held out a cup of water to him the moment he put aside the piece he had been working on.

"A little," she answered. He could probably see that it was an understatement. She didn't bother to hide it much.

After a deep gulp from the cup that almost emptied it, Tom nodded towards the forge that belonged to the cottage. "I put everything in there," he said. "Everything that's finished goes right back into the carts. Easier to track progress that way. Kate…" He reached out but stopped short of touching her, keeping the soot on his hands away from her clothing. "I can do this. He's measuring what a smith can do by the work of an old man who must have been hardly able to lift his hammer by the end. I'll have this done before the week is out. That leaves me with more than enough time to finish that breastplate of his."

The idea still didn't sit well with her, but she said nothing. "I can…" she started, but was interrupted by a stranger trotting towards them, waving one hand high over his head. She nodded towards him, causing Tom to turn.

"You! Blacksmith!" the man called when he saw that he had caught their attention.

"Name's Tom!" Tom called back.

The man came close enough to be able to communicate without yelling. "Ol' Marty's cow got out an' is dead-set at not bein' returned," he stated without introduction. "It's a devilish mean kind o' beast – we could need another hand afore it ruins all the crop. Care t' give us a hand?"

Tom gestured for Kate to refill the cup and offered it to the man before peeling his apron. "Sure," he said. "And nice to meet you, …?"

"Jack," the man answered with a gap-toothed grin as he returned the cup. He nodded towards Kate. "Ma'am."

Kate shook her head. "Tom." Her voice held an edge now. "Is this a good idea?"

Her husband banked the fire and put his tools out of the way with quick, efficient motions. "We'll be neighbors, Kate," he pointed out. "Neighbors help each other." As a matter of fact, he very much suspected that this was at least partially the villagers' way of testing him and seeing what kind of stuff he was made of. "Besides, I got a good head start last night and this morning. We'll be fine." Turning back to the other man, he added. "Lead the way, Jack. I'm coming."

 

*

In theory, Kate knew that he was right. He had worked up a good head start already. She knew because she had counted the pieces done and the pieces left to do. Several times.

She had started carrying buckets of water inside to scrub the floor. For all she could tell, the old inhabitants of this cottage hadn't been great on cleaning.

Noon came and passed. How long could it take? Every time she glanced at the windows – they would need to be cleaned next, that was for sure! Small as they were anyway, they had no business being that dirty – the sun moved continually lower.

Finally – finally, the sound of the door opening made her look up.

"That must have been quite a chase," she observed as she took in his disheveled appearance, the mud stains on his clothes. Then her eyes found his hands, the right one wrapped in a rag that showed reddish splotches on the brown material.

He shrugged, looking apologetically first at his hand, then at her. "I slipped and fell, got my hand stepped on," he explained. "It's nothing, really. I'll be back at the forge by morning." He laughed. "Though I'm ready to bet I'll curse the moment I thought it was a good idea to help catch that cow."

  
  
Illustration by Rebekah


	4. Chapter 4

Kate could see that it was painful for Tom to take up the hammer the next morning. It was hard to miss. He set his face determinedly and wrapped his fingers around the handle. He brought it down once, twice – the second was much less coordinated than the first already. The third failed entirely as the tool slid from his grasp.

Suppressing a curse, he stooped to pick up the hammer and wipe it clean on his apron.

He looked at his wife with a forced smile. "Looks like I need to take a break for a day," he said, trying to heft the hammer again and putting it back down with a grimace.

When she said nothing, he added: "There's plenty of time to finish the work, Kate. Really, there is."

"I know." She didn't sound convinced.

*

Kate closed the door to the cottage behind her, tears in her eyes.

Several days had passed. Tom's hand had not improved, and she suspected that his increasingly desperate attempts at returning to work hadn't helped.

Still, she hadn't realized how much he had played down the injury until the fever set in.

"You never mentioned it was the cow that stepped on your hand!" she accused him when she saw his unwrapped hand for the first time.

He tried to smile through his pain. "I don't think I said anything about who the foot belonged to at all."

That he hadn't. Kate looked down at his hand again, swollen and discolored, cuts from the edges of a hard hoof across the back of his hand oozing pus. She reached out to take his hand in hers and jerked back when he flinched at the hint of a touch. She'd come close enough to notice his hand was radiating heat like a fire.

She got up. "Have any of our new neighbors mentioned anything about who acts as a healer here?" With an effort, she kept her voice level.

Tom shook his head, mutely.

Turning towards the door, she wondered if he had actually managed to convince himself that his hand would heal quickly on its own.

"I'll find out," she told him. "I'll get someone to take care of that."

It took her forever to find someone, longer to convince him that coming with her would not be merely a waste of his time. She dug into their savings to pay him an advance, knew she had to expect losing most of the coin they had to him. Still, she thought it was preferable to Tom losing his hand to that injury.

It didn’t make any difference.

The man took one look at Tom's hand and shook his head. "The wound is poisoned," he said. "There is only one thing do to."

"You will not cut off my hand," Tom snarled.

The physician moved back. "Then you will die," he stated evenly as he started to rise. "Now, if there's nothing here for me to do, I will take my payment and my leave…"

"No." Kate stopped him. She locked eyes with Tom, putting all the conviction she could muster into her gaze and her voice. "Tom, I'd rather have you one-handed than dead. We'll work things out but let us work them out together."

He looked away, dejectedly. "Ever heard of a one-handed blacksmith?" he asked.

"No," she admitted. "But I am sure neither has the lord on his hill. He'll have no reason to want to keep you as his pet smith and we will be free to leave and start over elsewhere. We'll be fine as long as we are together."

Her husband seemed to consider for a few moments. When the silence had stretched until the physician showed signs of wanting to leave again, Kate added, silently: "Do not leave me alone at that man's mercy."

With a deep breath, Tom looked back up at the other man. "Do it," he said, "before I lose my nerve."

In response, the physician turned to Kate. "Get a few neighbors to hold him down. He's too strong a man for me to work on my own."

She'd gone, her heart growing heavier with every step she took down the street towards the next cottage. After returning with Jack and his son, she forced herself to remain, even though the physician wanted to send her out of the room. She owed Tom that much. Even now she could hear his scream when the heated blade bit into his flesh just above his wrist.

Tom was sleeping now, and she had needed some fresh air. The smell of blood seemed to cling to the inside of the cottage, even though she was pretty sure that she had cleaned it all up. It was probably in her head more than an actual smell anyway.

In any case, the cooler air outside helped. Some.

Keeping her eyes on the horizon, she tried to force herself not to think of the implications of what had happened. She wasn't at all sure that the lord would simply let them leave. She wasn't sure at all that they could work something out. Things might have been different if it had only been the two of them. They would soon have a child to care for. She didn't want to live from one day to the next, never knowing if they would be able to afford food for the next meal.

She hadn't lied though. If that was what was going to happen, she would rather it happened with Tom by her side.

The sun was crawling over the horizon, the first rays striking the anvil that Tom had set up in front of their cart.

The last plowshare that he had tried to work on was still lying there, abandoned.

Slowly, Kate wandered over, running her hands first over the anvil, then the tools. Of course she had done some smithing since she had married Tom. Most smiths' wives did some supporting work. Arrowheads and nails mostly, things where quantity mattered more than quality.

But once, she had learned so much more.

She lit the fire and took up the bellows, fanning it to the heat she needed it to soften the metal sufficiently to be worked.

The first impact of hammer on iron sent a jolt up her arm. Beating a nearly flat piece was different from hammering an arrowhead into shape. She tensed muscles she had almost forgotten she had and tried again. The second stroke was better executed, and with it came a feeling she had almost forgotten. She let it fill her up and gave herself fully to the task at hand, shutting out everything but the piece of work before her, heating, turning, hammering at it until it was fit to be used again.

At some point – she didn't keep a tally of how many she had finished to keep herself from getting nervous if things went slower than she thought they should – she looked up, wiping her brow with one sleeve, and saw Tom standing there.

His fever had obviously gone down. He regarded her with clear eyes as he stood there, holding what remained of his arm close to his body.

"We can finish in time," she told him over the hiss of hot metal hitting water. "If you walk me through that breastplate, we can still finish in time."

  
  
Illustration by Rebekah


	5. Chapter 5

They lived in that cottage for three years. It was the place of some of her happiest memories, as well as some of the most painful ones – both physical in the birth of their son, and otherwise.

Coughs and fevers were frequent visitors in winter. That year, the one that came to their village killed. Few families were spared.

Of the three of them, Kate started coughing first.

When she woke from fever dreams, the lack of Tom by her side, even more than the look on the face of the neighbor who had come to take care of the sick, told her that something was horribly wrong.

Somehow, she made it through the funeral of both the older and younger Tom, even though she was still weak from her own sickness and torn by grief for her family.

A familiar figure was waiting for her when she approached the cottage.

"Mylord," she acknowledged him, unable to muster more than a nod of courtesy.

He wasn't one to beat around the bush, or to spare a grieving widow, it appeared.

"I gave this cottage to your husband for the rest of his natural life," he told her without even offering condolences. "It appears that our contract has come to an end. I am not a cruel man. You may keep it until the snow melts, but I expect you gone from it on the day the roads clear."

Without waiting for an answer, he turned on his heel and walked back to his horse, mounting and riding away up the hill.

*

At first, Kate had not had the energy to try and resist the lord's orders. Then she no longer had the wish to. She was a free woman and a smith. She still had the old cart, the mobile forge that had been Tom's and now was hers. The horses still had a few good years in them. Work was what she needed to help her over the grief and pain.

It was not unheard of for a craftsman's widow to take up his profession. It was her right. Most of them might take in a younger colleague, providing their husband's name and reputation while another man did the work. Some, however, actually did take over the workshop, working for whoever was willing to pay a woman to do a man's work.

She had never heard of any of them taking up the life of a travelling craftsman, though.

It didn't matter.

She didn't mind a challenge.

 

  
  
Illustration by Rebekah


End file.
